HERE
is only one Gospel ¾
only one true message of good news from heaven. But there are many
substitutes offered in place of the Gospel. It was so in the beginning.
It is so now. The apostle

Paul
wrote to the Galatians:

"I marvel that ye
are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel; which is not another; but there be some that
trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or
an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which
we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so
say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
ye have received, let him be accursed." (Galatians1:6-9)

THESE
are intensely solemn words. They come bubbling up from the steaming
heart of the indignant apostle in righteous wrath as he learns of
pretentious carnal legalists deliberately seeking to mislead
eternally-bound souls with a false message which could only, like a
will-o-the-wisp, lead to ruin and destruction at last. He would have us
know it is a fearfully wicked thing to trifle with the sacred heaven -
sent message that has come to a needy world declaring the grace of God
to poor lost sinners.

WHAT
then is this Gospel of which the apostle was so jealous? He tells us
plainly in 1st Corinthians 15:1-4,

"... I declare unto
you the gospel... how that Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day
according to the scriptures."

Note
carefully: The Gospel is
God's wonderful story of His beloved Son. It is a message of grace to be
received in faith. It is not a code of laws to be obeyed or good advice
to be followed. It is not a system of ritual observances or a call to
submit to certain ordinances. It does not set forth the claims of any
human church organization, however venerable, nor does it exhort men to
seek after experiences, however remarkable, though a blessed experience
follows its acceptance. It simply sets forth Christ crucified and risen
as the Savior of all who believe in Him.

WHEN
THE MORMON elder comes
declaring that an angel revealed a gospel of salvation through a
restored church and renewed ordinances, he is preaching another gospel,
and angel and man are alike under the curse.

WHEN
THE LEGALIST comes
insisting that salvation is by obedience to God's holy law (which in
itself is just and good), he is preaching another gospel, for the Word
of God declares, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in
His sight."

WHEN
THE REVIVALIST comes
promising salvation to those "who make a full surrender" of all that
they have to God, and who "pay the price of full salvation," he is
preaching another gospel, for the price was paid on Calvary's cross and
the work that saves is finished. It was Christ Jesus who made the full
surrender, when He yielded Himself unto death for us that we might be
redeemed from the curse of the broken law and forever saved from the
judgment to come upon all who refuse His grace.

WHEN
THE MODERNIST prates in
glowing terms and honeyed phrases of salvation by character, salvation
by altruism, salvation by ethical culture, he, too is proclaiming
another gospel, for if character could have saved, Christ need not have
died; if altruism would have fitted sinful men for heaven, the Lord
Jesus would surely have told us so; if ethical culture could deliver
from the wrath of God, what place would Gethsemane, Calvary and the
Empty Tomb have in the Divine economy?

WHEN
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST
(falsely so-called) denies the reality of sin, disease and death and
lulls sinners to sleep by telling them that "God is all and all is God,"
even going so far as to declare the death of Christ was unreal, and His
resurrection simply spiritual, and that the blood of Jesus was no more
efficacious to cleanse from sins when shed upon the accursed tree than
when it was flowing in His veins, he, or she, is promulgating another
gospel, which is not another, for it is a baseless dream, a weird and
blasphemous "error of mortal mind" that will leave its votaries at last
without God and without hope.

THE
SOLEMN FACT IS THERE IS NO OTHER GOSPEL.
Every pretended substitute is but a Satan-devised delusion meant to turn
men away from the strait gate which alone leads into the narrow way, and
make them contented as they crowd down the clear side of the broad way
to eternal perdition.

BEFORE
there can really be another gospel there must be another savior and
another Holy Spirit, and this can never be. Nor is any other gospel
needed, for the grand old Gospel of the grace of God is all-sufficient
to save "whosoever will," and has demonstrated its power throughout the
centuries by transforming lost miserable sinners into happy joyous
saints. Paul says,

"I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For
therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith"
(Romans 1:16,17).

THE Gospel needs only to be preached in the power of the Holy Spirit to
hold its own against every imitation and substitute that the mind of the
natural man energized by Satan can devise.
Like the Bible itself it is divinely inspired and, therefore,
preeminently fitted for the needs of mankind... It convinces the mind
and satisfies the heart, if men but take the place of repentant sinners
and accept it by faith. It is the dynamic of God unto the
deliverance of all who believe it. To refuse it is to be lost. To
receive its message is to be saved.

IT
reveals the righteousness of God, making known how He "can be just and
the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." Satan's false gospels all
pretend to show how man can establish his own righteousness. The Gospel
of Christ comes to unrighteous men and tells them of a righteousness
that is divine which is imputed to all who believe.

ANOTHER
gospel ¾
whatever its outward form ¾
will always be found to center in something that man can be or do in
order to obtain merit. The Gospel of God declares what Christ has done
in order that the salvation purchased may be justly offered to sinners.

ANOTHER
gospel presupposes some strength, some ability to please God, in the
natural man. God's Gospel declares that when "we were yet without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

ANOTHER
gospel will land you in hell! God's Gospel, believed, will bring you
safe to heaven.

TURNING
from every false hope, I beseech my unsaved reader to rest in what
Scripture declares concerning Christ, and thus be able to sing in faith:

"Upon a life I
did not live, Upon a death I did not die, Another's life, Another's
death I hang my whole eternity. None will ever be confounded who put
their trust in Him."

[Dr. Harry Ironside (1876-1951), a godly Fundamentalist
author and teacher for many years, served as pastor of Chicago's Moody Memorial
Church from 1930-1948]